[sedatk]

I first heard about ICQ in 1997 too (UINs were still 6 digits at the time), but dismissed it because I thought it was ridiculous to make yourself always available for messaging. It didn't make any sense to me at all. But, the world had other plans. The next year, when all of my friends were using it, I could only get a 8-digit UIN.

Today, I can relate even more so than ever to my ICQ-skeptic self from 1997 though.

[throwaway519]

You weren't available all the time then. It was perfectly natural to assume someone wasn't at their computer and that was perfectly ok. It wasn't necessary to give status updates that you would in fact be on time to meet like you said you'd be, things were a little more planned, and you'd call or SMS if really needed but mainly don't want to intrude.

[throw0101c]

> You weren't available all the time then. It was perfectly natural to assume someone wasn't at their computer and that was perfectly ok.

Someone made the observation back then that 'the less you talk about "being online", the more important it will be'. Nowadays, because of IP-over-radio (smartphones) we're all basically online all the time (which has been true to a certain extent for a while with (dumb) phones and SMS/texting).

But it goes further now with many more ways of interaction.

[AStonesThrow]

My girlfriend and I pounced on ICQ in that year. I wound up with UIN# 279866.

And then ICQ was invaded and subverted by Russia. I mean pervasively. Just like LiveJournal was, later on.

I have come to believe that these were simply psyops that were a bit less anticipated than TikTok was.

Imagine the power of Russian threat actors knowing when and where every kid was online and wanting to chat, and who all their friends were.

[MyPasswordSucks]

> And then ICQ was invaded and subverted by Russia. I mean pervasively.

...not... really...? I mean, it's the 9th-most-populated country in the world, so when it comes online, it's something people notice. Just like when Nigeria did a decade or so later.

What happened with ICQ is that AIM became available separately from AOL dialup, and AIM was a lot more "instant". Remember, circa late-90s, the default ICQ message flow was to double-click a flashing tray icon, click "reply", type your message, and click "send". Or tab-space if you were a badass keyboard warrior.

AIM - by default - had a persistent window, where sending messages was accomplished with the enter key. Simple as.

You could tinker with ICQ and get it to be a bit more AIM'y (though you still had to tab-space to send), but tinkering was required.

So despite the fact that ICQ had a lot more features than AIM, a better and more reliable file transfer, a far more robust and better-granulated status system*, if you wanted to talk to non-nerds in your high school, you had to use AIM.

* AIM was just "online" and "away" combined with active/idle; ICQ had - from memory, so I may be forgetting one - online, away, not available, DND, free-for-chat, and "private", where only users you chose could see your online status. Plus, you could also show as offline to certain other users without actually blocking their messages!

> Just like LiveJournal was, later on.

LiveJournal was bought by a Russian company in 2007. ICQ was bought by a Russian company in 2010.

> I have come to believe that these were simply psyops that were a bit less anticipated than TikTok was.

I enjoy yelling at clouds as much as the next old man, but come on.

> Imagine the power of Russian threat actors knowing when and where every kid was online and wanting to chat, and who all their friends were.

I'm... imagining it. It's not really that impressive, but I'm imagining it. I mean, "between 3pm local time and bedtime, all-day on weekends and holidays; less than this as the nerd-factor diminishes" is pretty much the answer. I'm hard-pressed to decide what a scary scary Russian bogeymen could really do with the information that I was friends with Jake and Mike, on uneasy mutual detente terms with Ramon, trying to get a smooch from, in sequential order, Jessica, Jaime, Jo, Becky, and Helen; and wouldn't talk to anyone who listed N*SYNC or that British "Spice Girls" psyop as a Favorite Band.

But if any creepy-crawly super-scary Russian threat actor bogeymen are reading this, by all means let me know - my curiosity is officially piqued. Just make sure you don't have any Di$ney movies in the Favorite Movies of the profile of whichever account you contact me from. You'll be auto-blocked >: |